Participatory Planning and Procedural Protections: the Case for Deeper Public Participation in Urban Redevelopment

Saint Louis University Public Law Review Volume 29 Number 1 Property Ownership and Economic Stability: A Necessary Relationship? (Volume Article 10 XXIX, No. 1) 2009 Participatory Planning and Procedural Protections: The Case for Deeper Public Participation in Urban Redevelopment Damon Y. Smith Rutgers School of Law - Camden, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/plr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Smith, Damon Y. (2009) "Participatory Planning and Procedural Protections: The Case for Deeper Public Participation in Urban Redevelopment," Saint Louis University Public Law Review: Vol. 29 : No. 1 , Article 10. Available at: https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/plr/vol29/iss1/10 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Saint Louis University Public Law Review by an authorized editor of Scholarship Commons. For more information, please contact Susie Lee. SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW PARTICIPATORY PLANNING AND PROCEDURAL PROTECTIONS: THE CASE FOR DEEPER PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN URBAN REDEVELOPMENT DAMON Y. SMITH* ABSTRACT For decades legal and planning commentators have advocated a deeper and more meaningful level of public participation in urban revitalization efforts. The result of such advocacy has increased the use of public participation as a criterion for awarding federal redevelopment funds but has had little impact on participatory requirements in state redevelopment law. This article explores the theoretical arguments in favor of increased public participation in the redevelopment context and finds that there is an overemphasis on direct democracy arguments and the “empowerment” theory, a concept that belies simple definition. This article explores the intrinsic and instrumental benefits of public participation and finds that participatory planning is beneficial as a legitimizing form of deliberation in governance, but only when used as a supplement to, rather than a replacement for politically accountable legislative authorities. This understanding of the role of participatory planning provides a more convincing rhetorical and normative regime that justifies the difficulties that arise when granting greater resident control of redevelopment and further legitimizes the planning process in a way that is legally cognizable by courts reviewing urban redevelopment plans. As a result, this article describes the need for more robust procedural legal rights that would allow low-income residents to resist redevelopment in those instances where the goals of participatory planning are not attained due to government corruption or inattention to public input. This new rhetorical and normative regime is tested against actual urban redevelopment planning methods used in Camden, New Jersey and East St. Louis, Illinois. This article suggests specific changes to state redevelopment laws that would enshrine deeper public participation * Assistant Professor, Rutgers School of Law-Camden. I am grateful for the assistance of my wife, Janine Jones Smith, the Rutgers School of Law-Camden Junior Faculty and Senior Faculty Colloquia participants, Ken Reardon and the student editors at the Saint Louis University School of Law’s Public Law Review. Any remaining errors or omissions in this article are entirely my own. 243 SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW 244 SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY PUBLIC LAW REVIEW [Vol. XXIX:243 values and concludes with an eye towards the additional research and advocacy necessary for achieving those changes. I. INTRODUCTION - THE COMMUNITY PLANNER’S CONUNDRUM Imagine the dilemma of a modern urban planner in a severely distressed American riverfront city. Her community, which was once a bustling industrial powerhouse whose geographic advantages made it the locus of transnational rail and river cargo shipments, is now a shell of its former self. The population had grown steadily after the turn of the 20th century as European immigrants and African American migrants from the South were attracted to the city’s plentiful employment opportunities for low-skilled workers.1 The population and industrial productivity, however, peaked in the early 1950s.2 Post WWII, a shift occurred in the economy and new development was catalyzed by construction of the interstate highway system, decreasing the need for rail and ship cargo while also providing a means of escape for those interested in moving away from the industrial pollution and overcrowded housing conditions in urban centers.3 Aided by federal housing programs that favored suburban tract housing, redlining banks that refused to lend in areas populated with a majority of racial minorities and unscrupulous Realtors who played on racial fears, the city bled residents at increasing rates throughout the next two decades.4 By the 1980s, “white flight” had turned into “green flight” with almost all residents of means fleeing the community’s rapidly rising rates of unemployment, poverty, and crime.5 The city that had once been considered a 1. See Nell Irvin Painter, Foreword to THE GREAT MIGRATION IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: NEW DIMENSIONS OF RACE, CLASS AND GENDER viii–ix (Joe W. Trotter, Jr. ed., 1991); Joe William Trotter, Jr., Introduction. Black Migration in Historical Perspective: A Review of the Literature, in THE GREAT MIGRATION IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: NEW DIMENSIONS OF RACE, CLASS AND GENDER 1, 5–7 (Joe W. Trotter, Jr. ed., 1991). 2. See Peter Gottlieb, Rethinking the Great Migration: A Perspective from Pittsburgh, in THE GREAT MIGRATION IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: NEW DIMENSIONS OF RACE, CLASS AND GENDER 68, 78–79 (Joe W. Trotter, Jr. ed., 1991). 3. See, KENNETH T. JACKSON, CRABGRASS FRONTIER: THE SUBURBANIZATION OF THE UNITED STATES, 190–209 (1985). 4. See Eduardo Moisés Peñalver & Sonia K. Katyal, Property Outlaws, 155 U. PA. L. REV. 1095, 1122 (2007) (“Through its creation of the interstate highway system and the discriminatory policies of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which would not guarantee mortgages in urban or racially integrated neighborhoods, government policy both lured and pushed investment capital out of inner cities and into outlying areas. Following the path laid by the FHA, private mortgage lenders simply refused to lend money for the construction or upkeep of properties within many urban neighborhoods.”). 5. Sheryll D. Cashin, Drifting Apart: How Wealth and Race Segregation Are Reshaping the American Dream, 47 VILL. L. REV. 595, 597–98 (2002) (“About half of the one-hundred largest SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW 2009] PARTICIPATORY PLANNING AND PROCEDURAL PROTECTIONS 245 regional economic engine with name-brand company headquarters became better known for its label as “Murder Capital” of the nation.6 By the last decade of the 20th Century, the city government, long considered corrupt, was unable to balance a budget with a dwindling tax base and the state intervened by taking control of the local school district and most municipal functions.7 Given this history, our modern community planner is faced with two common choices in community economic development practice. On the one hand, she could pursue a bottom-up strategy by convincing municipal officials and local residents to engage in a participatory planning process designed to facilitate resident input into the development of neighborhood and community revitalization plans. In the alternative, she could pursue a top-down strategy by packaging public powers, such as eminent domain and tax abatement, to entice private developers to pick neighborhoods to develop according to plans that the municipality could then adopt with little or no community consultation. The state’s redevelopment law appears neutral on its face to either decision, but the planner notes that the public participation requirements enshrined in that law could easily be met with only one or two public hearings.8 In addition, the state redevelopment law provides few procedural protections that residents of low-income communities could use to successfully fight against redevelopment or the municipality’s right to use eminent domain in such an economic development context.9 The hypothetical above roughly describes the development trajectories of East St. Louis, Illinois and Camden, New Jersey, which are two of this nation’s most economically distressed communities. Despite their similarities, these cities have followed different paths in terms of redevelopment planning and metro areas became majority-minority . in no small part because of the widespread suburbanization of the white middle class . All racial groups are rapidly moving to the suburbs.”). 6. See Editorial, Gary Drops to 9th on List of Most Dangerous, POST-TRIBUNE, Nov. 21, 2005, at A1 (describing Camden, NJ as the most dangerous city in America); Beth Hundsdorfer, St. Clair County Reports Fewer Homicides in ‘04 Number Falls from 33 to 31, BELLEVILLE NEWS-DEMOCRAT, Jan. 1, 2005, at 1A (describing East St. Louis’ former designation as most dangerous city in America). 7. Laura M. Litvan, States Try to Rescue School, INVESTOR’S BUS. DAILY, Feb. 17, 1998, at A1 (“After years of watching the school board in East St. Louis fail to improve one of Illinois’ worst school districts, state officials had had enough. They took over the district. The state set up a management panel four years ago to control all of the school system’s financial decisions.”); Melanie Burney & Dwight Ott, Judge Allows Camden Recovery Act, PHILADELPHIA

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